1989 Volume 51 Issue 2 Pages 23-30
A normal stress distribution under a rigid wheel travelling on soft ground such as a farm with a high moisture content was analyzed introducing a viscoelastic constitutive equation with three element Maxwell model. Based on Bekker's method, it was assumed that a normal stress under a wheel is equal to that under a rigid plate penetrated vertically to the sinkage of the ground contact face of the wheel.
It is indicated from the calculated results that the maximum normal stress appears in front of the wheel axle and that the normal stress decreases with an increase of slippage which causes the increase of sinkage and contact area. These calculated results were compared with test results, in which we see their good agreement.
